A man mysteriously disappears in a lighthouse, as if dissolved by light, leaving behind a notebook filled with bizarre claims of a curse and a series of drawings entitled ‘The Death of the Jubilant Child.’ The investigation into the disappearance unearths hidden connections between the disappeared man, Helene and the strange figure of the Man With The Forks In His Fingers. Fifteen years later, the discovery of the detective’s copy of the notebook by Helene’s daughter seems to set in motion a repetition of the events of the past.

Circuitously structured and intensely lyrical, The Autodidacts explores the mythos of friendship, the necessity of failure, the duty of imagination, and the dreams of working class lives demanding to be beautiful. It is a prayer in denial of its heresy, a metafictional-roman-a-clef trying to maintain its concealment, and an attempt to love that shows its workings out in the margins of its construction.

Purchase The Autodidacts here.

 

Playlist

Bohren and the club de gore – Midnight black earth

PJ Harvey – White Chalk

Tortoise – Jetty

The Cure – Deep green sea

Guns N Roses Welcome to the Jungle

The Mountain Goats – Amy Spent Gladiator 1

Darklands – Jesus and Mary Chain

Trans Am – Sad and Young

Arthur Russel – Arm around you.

Mudhoney – Touch me I’m sick

My little Brother – Art Brut

Here comes a regular – The replacements

Kyuss – Gardenia

The Mountain Goats – Ezekial 7 and the permanent efficacy of grace.

 

Key texts

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

I instantly loved how this heightened and unhinged and completely impossible language was given to these characters who would most likely be represented as completely impoverished if written by some bourgeois social ‘realist.’I found that idea so beautiful. It was rawer too than any British iteration of modernism.

When I read this as a kid it felt like it exploded what language could be.

The Book of Lies – Agota Kristoff

Maybe my favourite all time work. I can’t even really explain it.

Guide – Dennis Cooper

I always think about Guide in parallel to Try since it marks a kind of interlocking transition from the emotional/analytic to analytic/emotional in the cycle’s structure. The way Guide backgrounds the emotional in order to show how emotion informs and underpins the analytical, the different ways the structure of the text works with emotion not as the result or goal of the work of art but rather as an interesting substance within it, combined with the idea of the novel as a kind of actualising thing in the world, a spell… I just love it.

Lanark – Alasdair Gray

Structure, content. Not upper-class.

Sons and Mothers – DH Lawrence

He gets a lot of shit, deservingly in places. But his work risked something, risked beauty and humiliation and again class suffuses his novel in a way antithetical to most canonical literature.

Mulholland Drive – David Lynch

I like the idea of a fantasy desperately trying to maintain itself and failing at the point of completion.

 

Readings

The Autodidacts — The Lighthouse, 1982

The Autodidacts — Excerpt 2

 

 

(preview the first 40 pages here: https://whiskeytit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Autodidacts-excerpt._print.pdf)

 

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank both Dennis and the Blog community. This place has been an education for me over the years and I’ve discovered so many artists and writers that have been immeasurably important to me. Mark Gluth, Jeff Jackson, Thomas Moronic, Slatted Light… All of you have helped me in innumerable ways. I’d also like to thank my friend and musician par excellence Matt Lyne for the cover work he made for the novel. Last but not least, thank you to Miette Gillette for taking a chance on this book.

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Today is an especially happy occasion because the blog gets to help mark the birth of the very long-awaited first novel by the extraordinary writer and longtime DC’s supporter/denizen Thomas Kendall. I’ve been an admirer of Thomas’s fiction for ages, and at long last the world at large can join in. It’s a gorgeous and brilliant novel that I highly recommend to all. Please peruse its evidence, and grab the thing itself if you are so inspired. Thank you, Tom, for letting the blog be part of the meet and greet. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah! ** Steve Erickson, I think ‘Vortex’ can’t help but be better and hopefully significantly so. How was it? I’ll see in the next day or two, I think. Oh, I didn’t actually get a good look at the DVD he bought. (Gisele and I were there doing a launch event for the ‘Jerk’ DVD and my attention was pulled elsewhere.) I’m glad you liked ‘Bee Reaved’. Yeah it’s/she’s great. How’s the Gran Fury book? ** Bill, I’m with you on the buckets, and I don’t know why either. Well, I guess because the pleasurableness seems obvious? What’s not to like? My head cold is being very stubborn, but there is incremental improvement at least. Thank you. Potemkine also handles the theater release in France for small, daring films and releases films on DVD, and I suspect those ventures in combination is what helps keep their flagship store afloat. My weekend was meetings and Zooms and some seeing of friends and a lot of sniffling. Happy week! ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, yeah, your Friday comment didn’t show up. Weird, and, well, not so weird given this place’s technical oddness. Pollard is insanely prolific. Guided by Voices alone have 35 albums and counting, and he releases hundreds and hundreds of other albums, singles, cassette-only releases, etc. at an alarming pace. I think there’s a book of Lou Reed’s interviews. if I’m not mistaken, and, yes, I’m glad I was never in any of the interlocutors’ shoes, even when he was being ‘nice’, ha ha. My head cold is still hanging in there, taking its sweet time to die, but it is more negotiable now, so I guess I should feel lucky. It’s a mystery, right? The pimples thing. I had bad pimples for, oh, a couple of years, but then they gave up finally. But I remember people at my school whose faces were just ravaged by acne, and I don’t feel like I see teens with that level of facial devastation anymore. Maybe it’s worse in the US. I mean, almost everything is worse there, so that’s probably an answer. I want a robot that looks like me but knows how to schmooze, because I can’t (and don’t want to). Love creating an international holiday where everyone has to wear a hat that is an exact albeit shrunk down replica of the tallest building in their country for 24 hours, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Ah, you were one of those robot drawing kids! I used to know kids who drew robots all the time. How many of those 400 records are 12″ singles do you estimate? I’m guessing a significant portion? ** Misanthrope, Oh, yeah that old paranoiacs’ wives tale, sure. I’ve never trued Kimchi. I’ve never really want to. It looks (and smells)… I don’t know. That Justin Isis, covering his bases. ** Bernard, I think that makes total sense on your automaton preference. One of the problems with the high tech, ultra-realistic robots is that they only ‘wow’ in person. Which in most cases means being Japan. Which you and I aren’t, clearly. My weekend was relatively quiet as well, at least externally. See you very soon? ** Ryan the abominable twink, Abominable is a very underrated, underused word, so I’m happy to see you employing it. Apart from my head cold and various film project related stresses, I’m fine. How is your brother like you, and how is he different from you? Wow, it sounds the budget on your dream video would be pricey, but, wait, Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, the particular charm and magic of the handmade and low budget, etc., I guess it wouldn’t have to be. The film is … having growing pains at the moment, but that’s really no surprise, and onwards, and thanks for asking. Have fun with the family, and I guess try to enjoy having to be relatively silent? Hugs, me. ** Okay. Devote yourselves to the introduction to Mr. Kendall’s excellent novel today, thank you very much. See you tomorrow.

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L.A. Raeven Annelies, Looking for Completion, 2018
‘She seizes up at my contact and the crying comes louder now, mimicking the effect of real human vulnerability. It’s only when she lifts her head I realize she’s a robot—and even then, it takes more than a few seconds to fully register: a slow realization that sends me through an emotional cyclone of empathy, sadness and fear.’

 

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Arcangelo Sassolino FIGURANTE, 2010
‘In Figurante, a steel mouth slowly crushes a cow femur over a period of three hours. The machine materializes stress for viewers to watch. Is this about pleasure through pain? I wanted to see what type of pressure was necessary to crush a bone to the point of being liquefied. It reminds me of our collective Paleolithic past. I want viewers to understand the visceral ramifications of hearing bones break.’

 

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Shyu Ruey-Shiann One Kind of Behavior, 2014
‘Viewers are greeted by dozens of metal buckets, each undulating to its own unique rhythm. Shyu works with different material and media to explore themes related to our environment. The installation One Kind of Behavior is inspired by the quasi-mechanical movements of creatures like hermit crabs. The artist sees within the landscape of nature, languid movements of opening and closing of the hermit crab’s shells, a stark contrast to contemporary society where things move at high speed.’

 

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Stelarc Spinning/Screaming: Event for Amplified Head, 2011
‘The performance used a Kinect sensor, to map the artist’s arm gestures to the Prosthetic Head animation and voice. The artist wore a head up display enabling him to view the head’s behaviour on the screen beside and behind him. The artist’s large shadow accentuated the interaction with the gesture recognition system, establishing a relationship between the artist’s arms and the visual and acoustical animations it generates. The performance is improvised, observing and responding to the artificial head’s behaviour, generating animations and vocalisations. What is interesting is the glitches that occur between the artist’s gestures and what the Kinect system can detect. And opportunistically incorporating them in the performance. The animation of the artificial head sometimes freezes, the vocalisation sometimes stutters. The accidental is welcomed.’

 

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Michel de Broin Castles Made of Sand, 2015-2016
‘The installation can be described as a production line that casts sand castles, dispatches them for a journey on a conveyer belt, and eventually sends them to crumble. The sand is then recuperated and recycled and a new castle created.’

 

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Lien-Cheng Wang Reading Plan, 2017
‘Reading Plan is an interactive artwork with 23 automatic page-turning machines. When audiences enter the exhibition room, the machines start to turn the pages automatically and read their contents in the voice of elementary school students. The machines are a metaphor for a Taiwanese classroom.

In 2016 in Taiwan there was an average of 23 students per primary school class. “When people go to school in Taiwan, they don’t have much power to decide what they want to read and study. It is like being controlled by a huge invisible gear. The authorities’ education policy prioritizes industry value and competitiveness. The government wants to promote a money-making machine rather than self-exploration and humanistic thinking. This is a complete realization of dogmatic rules and state apparatus.” (Lien-Cheng Wang)

‘The machines read an extract from The Analects of Confucius—a book that has influenced Asian countries for thousands of years in ethics, philosophy, and morality. The content reads: “The Master said, ‘Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?’ ‘Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?’ ‘Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?’” The essence of the book is a metaphor of ancient China, which wanted to control surrounding countries for thousands of years.’

 

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Takashi Murakami Sans titre, 2016
‘Murakami’s life size representation of himself as one of the enlightened figures of the Arhat Buddhist tradition is immobile, but three sets of moving eyes capture the viewer as the android recites the Sūtra du Coeur.’

 

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Michael A. Salter Giant Styrobots, 2008
polystyrene packing materials, 22 feet tall

 

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Patrick Tresset Human Study #1, Distanced, 2022
‘Patrick Tresset is a Brussels-based artist who, in his work, explores human traits and the aspects of human experience. His work reflects recurrent ideas such as embodiment, passing time/time passing, childhood, conformism, obsessiveness, nervousness, the need for storytelling, and mark-making. He is best known for his performative installations using robotic agents as stylized actors that make marks and for his exploration of the drawing practice using computational systems and robots.’

 

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So Kanno & Takahiro Yamaguchi Asemic Languages, 2016
‘Characters are a means of visual communication and recording a language. Civilizations through- out the world have created various characters that convey their culture and history. This project focuses purely on the form of the characters rather than their meaning. The characters have been learned by artificial intelligence (AI) not for their meaning but for their shape and patterns. The AI has created and drawn lines that look like characters but do not have any meaning.’

 

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Orlan ORLAN ET ORLANOÏDE, Strip-tease électronique et verbal, 2017
‘The ORLANOÏDE is a sculpture that was created especially for the Artistes & Robots exhibition at the Grand Palais. The artificial hybrid has collected social intelligence that in turn generates texts and movements. The ORLANOÏDE that resembles ORLAN questions AI and new technologies which search to rebuild, reconstruct and reinvent the human body. In this installation the robot speaks, dances and sings with ORLAN’S voice and multiplies using mirrors to create a real visual spectacle and a theatre of deep learning. The ORLANOÏDE is in dialogue with ORLAN through the use of two HD screens and three cameras and a presence sensor.’

 

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Bill Vorn Mega Hysterical Machine, 2013
‘The Mega Hysterical Machine has a spherical body and eight arms made of aluminum tubing. It has a sensing system, a motor system and a control system that functions as an autonomous nervous system (entirely reactive). It is suspended from the ceiling and its arms are actuated by pneumatic valves and cylinders. Ultrasound sensors allow the robot to detect the presence of viewers in the nearby environment. It reacts to the viewers according to the amount of stimuli it receives.’

 

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Louis-Philippe Demers and Bill Vorn Inferno, 2016
‘INFERNO is a participatory robotic performance, an absolutely unique experience, in which electronic music plays an essential role. In this involuntary choreography of 60 minutes for 2 x 24 participants from the public, the volunteers’ movements are controlled in synchronization with this techno-industrial music by tele-operated upper body exoskeletons.’

 

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Annie Wan Where’s the Chicken?, 2008-2009
‘These chickens are amazing – they are larger than life, do special performances based on their location in one of the 18 different districts of Hong Kong, make quarky noises, facial expressions, and you could sign up to take them for a walk! The chickens were then tracked using SMS texting, and the data was used to create a “Chicken Map” of Hong Kong.’

 

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‘Ai-Da is a humanoid robot credited with being the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist. Completed in 2019, Ai-Da is an artificial intelligence robot that makes drawings, painting, and sculptures. She is named after Ada Lovelace. The robot gained international attention when it was able to draw people from sight with a pencil using her bionic hand and cameras in her eyes.’

 

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Keith Lam Stand Up, Light Up, Shape Up, 2015
‘When you own an a country, you can own light. You can own prosperity, culture and civilisation. Yet light becomes luxury when you cannot afford bulbs. They struggle for lights, a basic right. And they struggle to read. Change their lives with light. Stand up and come close to the people, light them up and shape their future up. This is interactive installation, it doesn’t have the fixed shape. The final shape of the candle is the end of the show day, and depending on whether we stand up and come closer to the candle.’

 

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Cod.Act Nyloïd, 2014
‘Nyloïd is a huge tripod consisting of three six-meter-long nylon limbs animated by sophisticated mechanical and sound devices. Sensual, animal and threatening, this mobile draws its dramatic power from the reac- tivity of its plastic and sound material to diverse mechanical constraints. Similar to a living object, its tension, effort and suffering, which result from its contortions and its vocal manifestation, can be sensed.’

 

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‘Aypera is Turkey’s first robot actor. “The only difference between Aypera and a human being is that it is designed by humans,” he said. “Aypera was designed with government support, and our main goal is its export.” Sharing that Aypera will play in TV series, commercials and also perform at a concert, Guven said they want to make Turkey’s first robot actor a “world-famous actress.” “She has graduated from all conservatories … has read all the theater plays in the world and can read them in a few minutes. She can learn everything on Google. She knows and watches actors across the world closely,” he added. Aypera has been developed by designer and instructor Bager Akbay, science fiction writer and science communicator Tevfik Uyar, and computer engineer and creative technologist Zeynep Nal Sezer.’

 

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Geumhyung Jeong Homemade RC Toy, 2019
‘The South Korean artist and choreographer Geumhyung Jeong’s new installation centers on five human-scale, remote-control sculptures that she cobbled together from metal brackets, batteries, wires, dental study props, and disassembled mannequins. Surrounding them are stepped plinths whose bright colors echo the robot sculptures’ wiring. The plinths display fetishistic agglomerations of spare parts: wheels, cables, gutted medical practice torsos, home repair parts. In their default state, the sculptures are frozen, comatose, even if all that wiring and machinery certainly suggests movement. The installation is the setting for a series of live interactions between the artist and her uncanny others.

‘In the performances, the artist’s body melds with that of her creations as she crawls at their level, lying at the start partly atop an eviscerated medical torso outfitted with crudely taped joystick controllers. She caresses it with such excruciating slow and sensual allure, it feels almost too intimate a scene to watch. Fondling the attached controllers, she occasionally uses enough force to elicit movement from a nearby robot, accompanied by a hum and glowing battery-powered lights. The artist’s choreographed interactions, like her exhibition as a whole, question the boundaries between animate and inanimate, controller and controlled, flesh and machine.’

 

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Ken Rinaldo The Augmented Fish, 2004
‘The Augmented Fish is comprised of 5 rolling robotic fish-bowls, designed to explore interspecies and trans-species communication. In these interactive robotic sculptures, Siamese fighting fish use intelligent hardware and software to move their fishbowls anywhere that they desire. By moving about they choose to interact with their environment and other Siamese fighting fish which can also see clearly beyond their glass bowls as well as control their fish cars.’

 

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Driessens & Verstappen Tickle Salon 2.0, 2002
‘The robot installation Tickle Salon provides a space arranged for stroking sessions. The suspended robot uses a “feeler” to probe the body on the bed. It carries out sensitive movements over the surface of the skin, endeavouring to offer variety, unpredictability and flexibility.’

 

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‘Japanese performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu takes her robot for a crawl in downtown Sydney, Australia. Crowds watch the bizarre sight of the life-like Japanese businessman in suit and tie slowly crawling on all fours along the pavement. The robot is a symbol of the Japan’s rigid Salaryman culture.’

 

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Piet.sO and Peter Keene R.-O.-B.-O.-T., 2013
mixted technics. L:75 cm x l:60 cm x h:205 cm

 

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Alex May and Anna Dumitriu My Robot Companion, 2011
‘Working with the University of Hertfordshire, the artists created a new robot called HARR1 (Humanoid Artistic Research Robot 1) based on a high quality mannequin with its arms and neck replaced by servo motors. The robot is designed to be installed in art galleries for long periods of time and be a modifiable platform for experimenting with robot ethics.

‘HARR1 was exhibited at Watermans gallery in London during September and October 2013. For the installation Alex implemented robot boredom where HARR1 would be looking around somewhat absent mindedly – much as humans do – until it sees people moving, which it will then look towards and follow across the room. If the people stop moving, HARR1 will get bored and look away.’

 

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So Kanno & Takahiro Yamaguchi Senseless Drawing Bot, 2018
‘This is a drawing machine that draws abstract lines using spray paint and movements that have the chaotic nature of a double pendulum. As a result of the electric skateboard moving left and right, the amplitude of the pendulum increases and once the momentum exceeds a certain threshold, the machine instantly draws on the wall. By eliminating the human body and claims involved in tagging in “graffiti,” and presenting only the dynamism, extemporaneity, and symbolic nature of the drawing process, this machine explores the true nature of these actions.’

 

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Wade Marynowsky Black Casino, 2013
‘Black Casino involves five flying V guitars mounted atop a rotating spin wheel as used in popular game shows such as ‘The Wheel of Fortune’. The guitars form a five-pointed star – a pentagram, which conjures certain magical associations and is used today as a symbol of faith by many Wiccans and Neo-pagans. This pentagram, however, depicts Diabolus in musica: the ‘tri-tone’ musical interval that has been used since the sixtenth century as the signature of the Devil – an association exploited by many heavy metal bands.’

 

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Julian Knowles & Wade Marynowsky Robot Opera, 2015
‘The robots operate on a wireless network according to algorithmic principles and choreographed behaviours, incorporating the ability to be responsive to audience interventions. The choreographed behaviours are mapped out via overhead cameras that track and control the robot’s position in in x and y coordinates. Audience members are able to move into the stage and engage with the robots in close proximity.

‘On a musical level, the work is structured so that the robots form an 8 member ensemble, with each robot capable of producing its own independent sound, local to itself – in effect playing a ‘part’ in the traditional sense within a musical ensemble. The resulting experience is of the robots as moving sound source/performers, performing the score from distributed locations. The musical parts can either be directed from the composer’s computer or can take the form of algorithms with audience input allowed via input from the robot’s onboard sensors.

‘On a technical level, the project has been based on the MAX and Arduino environments with additional programming from Imran Khan and Adam Hinshaw. Equipped with Kinect v2 cameras, the robots respond to humans by translating their proximity and facial expression into responsively programmed music, sound and light. The robots also contain sensors to detect objects and barriers. These data are then sent across a wireless network to the central control computers operated by Wade Marynowsky and myself.’

 

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EleksMaker EleksEgg Egg Drawing Robot, 2017
‘EleksEgg is a machine designed and to draw on uneven surfaces where it would normally be impossible to do so, such as golf balls, ping pong balls, large marbles, ball bearings, light bulbs, pumpkins, stone balls, and eggs. This can also be used on wine glasses and Christmas ornaments. It can even print on ellipsoidal and spherical shapes, just as long as it is sturdy, smooth and fits on the machine. The drawing is done with a simple ink marker pen.’

 

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Survival Research Labs Spine Robot Tentacle Arm, 2012
‘Spine Robot is a working prototype of a decidedly tentacle-like robotic arm. The arm’s nimble movements are made possible by four rope tendons that are actuated by hydraulics. The 12 foot long arm is being developed by San Francisco Bay Area art group Survival Research Labs for their robotic performances. The large building in the video is the Federal Building, which houses the FBI, etc. The machine was running off of a large generator on the truck. First time out and it almost beaned Greg Leyh with a 10 lb crescent wrench that it threw, (though truth be told, he was operating the claw release himself at the time).’

 

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Max Dean, Raffaello D’Andrea, Matt Donovan Robotic Chair, 2003-2006
‘The Robotic Chair may look like a generic wooden chair. Unlike most chairs, however, this one falls apart and puts itself back together. The Robotic Chair is guided by an overhead vision system and controlled over a wireless network by an external computer. Various algorithms govern the chair’s behavior, while the software is structured in such a way that the system can learn from its environment.

‘The Robotic Chair keeps its controls and technology hidden under a simple wooden veneer, making it high-tech in the most unassuming way. As the chair falls apart, gathers itself together and picks itself back up again and again, it reminds us not only of our fallibility, but also of our innate capacity for re-creating ourselves.’

 

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Wanda Tuerlinckx Robot Portraits, 2015 ->
‘Since 2015, Tuerlinckx has been traveling the world with her Victorian-era camera to meet humanoids, robots, and androids of all kinds, shooting them for a series she calls “Robot Portraits.” “Robot Portraits” is a project that Tuerlinckx plans to be engaged with for the next two decades or so, a time during which, she predicts, “robots [will] become more and more integrated into our lives.” So far, she has taken around 100 portraits, which range from images of purely functional machinery (mechanical arms and prosthesis) to surprisingly true-to-life androids that talk and behave like humans.’

 

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‘Dr. Masaaki Kumagai, director of the Robot Development Engineering Laboratory at Tohoku Gakuin University, in Tagajo City, Japan, has built wheeled robots, crawling robots, quadruped robots, biped robots, and biped robots on roller skates. Then one day a student suggested they build a robot that would balance on a ball. The robot they built rides on a rubber-coated bowling ball, which is driven by three omnidirectional wheels. The robot can not only stand still but also move in any direction and pivot around its vertical axis. It can work as a mobile tray to transport cocktails objects and it can also serve as an omnidirectional supporting platform to help people carry heavy objects. Such a ball-balancing design is like an inverted pendulum, and thus naturally unstable, but it offers advantages: it has a small footprint and can move in any direction without changing its orientation.’

 

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Pekka and Teija Isorättyä Invalid Robots, 2010
‘Pekka and Teija Isorättyä first captured the popular imagination a few years ago with their Zimmer frame-pushing Invalid Robots. Their fusions of art and technology are a far cry from modernist machine aesthetics. Best defined as ‘electromechanical bio-art’, their sculptures are fashioned out of organic materials such as tanned hide, stripped bone and fish skin, to which they add a retrofitted second-hand motor. To the contemporary eye, human-machine hybrids seem stiff, passive and soulless. But the roots of their posthumanist art trace back to the automata commissioned by the church and the court during the late Renaissance. These human simulacra were ‘living machines’ that seemed to act unpredictably, playfully, interactively, as if they had a mind of their own. Pekka and Teija Isorättyä thus justifiably pose the question: “For how long will mechanics and electronics look forward to the future – or do they already hark back to the past?”’

 

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Tim Lewis Pony, 2008
Electric motors, aluminium, feathers

 

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Marco Barotti The Woodpeckers, 2019
‘The Woodpeckers transform in real time the invisible radiations used for mobile communication and wireless technology into audible and visible acoustic drumming patterns. The sonic result is a generative acoustic composition which undergoes constant transformation. A live soundscape which resonates as invading drum ensemble into urban and natural environments.’

 

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Goshka Macuga To the Son of Man Who Ate the Scroll, 2016
‘Macuga’s spectacular famous learned man and contemporary prophet, installed in the Podium, is a “manmade man”: a bearded android commissioned from the Japanese A-Lab, who speaks in a captivating voice while turning his handsome head, blinking his eyes, and moving his hands like a perfectly “natural” creature. It utters a blend of words of wisdom by thinkers, philosophers, writers and artists from the past. “The robot is the rhetoric, a collector of speech. Like ancient orators, his speeches are constructed of many speeches”, says Macuga. Among them is a witty quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: “How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”’

 

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Gilberto Esparza NOMADIC PLANTS, 2008 – 2014
‘In 2008, Esparza began the process of developing Nomadic Plants (Plantas Nómadas), his first project addressing urban and industrial water pollution. A collaboration between technology (a robotic system), plants, and bacteria, it took six years of research and experimentation to create the final product. The robot extracts polluted river water, stores it in a group of microbial fuel cells (think biological batteries) where the bacteria in the water itself break down the toxic substances to create clean water that, in turn, feeds the living plants. At the same time, the bacteria generate energy to recharge the batteries. Esparza’s research indicated that the more polluted the water, the more energy it produced. Over the course of the project development, as he does with all of his projects, he worked with a team of engineers and biologists to create the robotic system.’

 

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Petra Gemeinboeck On Track, 2008–9
‘On Track is a performative assemblage involving a mechanical mop, a troupe of robotic brushes and spilling viscous fluids. The work develops an ironic lens through which to look at human endeavour, its overly complicated mechanisms and procedures, and their vulnerability to a slipperiness already built in.’

 

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‘Justin Bieber unveils the TOSY mRobo at CES 2012. As the music plays the robot will grow a head, arms, and legs and start dancing. “Not only do they have a great new way to listen to their favorite songs but they also have a new partner to dance to their favorite music with,” Ho Vinh Hoang, founder and CEO of TOSY Robotic, said in a statement.’

 

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Engineered Arts RoboThespian, 2010
‘RoboThespian is the product of over 15 years of iteration and innovation in the hands of our expert robotics team. Powered by our unique Tritium operating system, RoboThespian is yours to command remotely from anywhere. With a range of expressive movements, speech and songs that can be animated in advance or on the go, RoboThespian will create waves of excitement wherever you place them: at your theatre or trade show, on a live panel or TV show, in a room full of executives or a science park filled with visitors.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, I read that about Tony Dow. Very sad news. Hope even against hope if need be for the miraculous. Everyone, Should you be in the LA area, and should you want/need ‘a humungous reel-to-reel TEAC tape recorder Number A3300SX-2T’, Mr. Ehrenstein has one on offer for the songlike price of $200 if you can pick it up at his place. Contact him @ [email protected]. ** Misanthrope, I think Panchito’s finally closed down, which, even having been anticipated for decades now, is very sad to think about. Mm, I prefer colds to flus just because, at least in this cold’s case, I can still at least kind of do things like the p.s. But, yes, no fun, and, yes, I think it’s gradually being put to bed. Hm, interesting about fermented foods. My diet is majority vegan/health food store stuffs, and I feel fairly safe in thinkingly guts are my friend. But, hey, that sounds like a winner of a plan to me, and I say go for it. ‘Prayers’ re: David’s interview. I have a weekend that’s a little busier than my current health makes seem sensible,  but I think I’ll manage to soldier through it, thanks. May yours salute your rockin’ of it. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s big fun, you won’t be sorry. Gotcha on taking the opportunity to cull your accrued past in item form, but I guess keep in mind that sentiment is one of human beings’ rare potential sources of joy. Or something. ** Bill, That Paul McCarthy video is kind of totally god. Thanks, Bill. I … think I’m upswinging? It’ll be easier to tell a little later on. I hope your weekend is as healthy as a horse. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Oh, I don’t have a headache. It’s a head cold — clogged, fuzzy thinking, etc. I almost never get headaches in general for some reason. So, no, on the migraines, thank god. I will, of course, immediately go find out what I need to find out about the The Prismatic Ground film festival and join in if possible. Thanks a lot! I just thought ‘Lux Aeterna’ was Gaspar on automatic pilot enacting the tropes he’s done many times before with much, much less imagination and commitment. But you may totally disagree. Strangely, I bumped into Gaspar yesterday afternoon at Paris’s great DVD store/film distributor Potemkine. He seems well. I saw no sign that the Mexican restaurants here marked Cinco de Mayo, but it’s certainly possible that some of them did. It seems like it would be anti-good business practices not to. ** Right. This weekend I am festooning you with the robotic. See you on Monday.